But with hope dwindling and his lease running out at the end of the upcoming season, Davis might have little choice but to look south to Los Angeles for refuge.

If so, he will do so nostalgically. The last time the Raiders won the Super Bowl, they did so while calling Los Angeles home.

“Great memories of Los Angeles,” Davis said.

And as he peeked out to the thousands of black-and-silver-clad Raiders fans who made the trek to Oxnard to watch practice, it’s obvious a good part of Southern California still remains fond of the Raiders.

The NFL undoubtedly took notice of the price tag. After all, if the Clippers can fetch $2 billion as the third tenant in their own building and standing behind the Lakers, Dodgers and USC football in the hearts of the Los Angeles market, what might an NFL team be worth?

As you might suspect, a lot.

“Here is the reality of the situation,” longtime agent Leigh Steinberg said. “A franchise in Los Angeles would be an amazingly profitable enterprise. We have 15 to 18 million people living within a couple hours’ drive and the reality is in our area the luxury boxes and premium seats would all sell out the quickest. In the same way floor seats at the Lakers and the Clippers are at a premium.

“We have a massive amount of corporations, including the entertainment industry, that would support the franchise and do naming rights and sponsorship and signage. It would be a major, money revenue-producing franchise. It would be enormously successful.”

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For all those reasons, Jones desperately wants the NFL back in Los Angeles.

The problem, of course, is overcoming the obstacles standing in the way of actually getting a team here.

Not the least of which is where the team will play, who finances and controls the stadium and whether an existing team moves here or the league decides to award Los Angeles a new franchise through expansion.

In other words, the same exact issues that have stalled L.A.’s quest to bring the NFL back for nearly two decades.

“It’s all about the stadium, right?” Davis said. “You have to have a place to play.”

But where?

The downtown Farmers Field project seems to be fading, the inability of AEG boss Phil Anschutz and the NFL to come to terms on a mutually beneficial financial model its biggest undoing.

Perhaps as a result, the NFL recently began floating the idea of building its own stadium and relocating one or two teams here.

Meanwhile, St. Louis Rams owner Stan Kroenke recently bought a 60-acre lot between the Forum and Hollywood Park in Inglewood and reports suggest he is contemplating buying the entire Hollywood Park property. If so, he’d have the necessary space to build a stadium with sufficient parking.

Keep in mind the Rams are free to break their lease with the outdated Edward Jones Dome after the 2015 season.

Could the Rams and Raiders be contemplating a return to Los Angeles?

The longer they go without a new stadium deal in their current cities, the likelier that becomes.

Whether it’s sooner rather than later, if and when the league successfully bridges all the chasms, the franchise that lands in Los Angeles will immediately be among the top revenue teams in the league.

“My guess is it would move to the top quartile pretty quickly,” said David Carter, an associate professor at USC’s Marshall School of Business.

Carter declined to put an actual number on it, but based on Forbes’ annual rankings of the most valuable teams in the NFL, that could mean anywhere from $2.5 billion to $3 billion dollars.

Carter stressed, though, it’s all based on everything going exactly right. A marketable team with star power. A committed, respected, astute owner. A stadium with the necessary bells and whistles to satisfy L.A.’s indulgent appetite.

And a whole bunch of winning seasons wouldn’t hurt, either.

As far as any correlation between the sale of the Clippers and Dodgers and the value of an NFL team in Los Angeles, comparing the situations is a case of apples and oranges.

For various reasons.

The Clippers and Dodgers were each sold under distressed situations, as Donald Sterling and Frank McCourt were being forced out of their respective leagues.

And at the time they went up for sale, there were no NBA or Major League Baseball teams available to glut the market.

Imagine selling your house in a wide-open market compared to a crowded one?

And in the Clippers’ case, their estimated value was far below the final sales price primarily because you had an ambitious buyer in Steve Ballmer who wanted so badly to own an NBA team he literally blew everyone else out of the water.

The Clippers might not be worth $2 billion to anyone else in the world but Ballmer, but that matters little.

His dream. His money. His rules.

“While it might not have made economic sense on paper, when you add the intangibles and his personal pursuit to it, who’s to say?” Carter explained.

More importantly, the NBA and MLB offer their franchises an individual revenue element the NFL doesn’t: the ability to negotiate local television deals.

For the Dodgers, that meant securing a 25-year, $8 billion deal with Time Warner last year.

The Clippers’ current TV deal, which pays them $20 million per year, expires after the 2016 season. Based on their growing popularity and the various local stations competing for their broadcasting rights, the Clippers could easily triple that with their next deal.

In the NFL, all 32 teams share national TV revenue equally. There are no local TV rights to tap into.

“One of the primary drives for the sales price of both teams was the ability to leverage their own media rights,” Carter said. “And that’s something an NFL team, individually, doesn’t have.”

No matter what an NFL team here is worth, the real question is whether it’s worth it to the NFL to vacate current markets — and subject itself to all the anger and negative press that would create — or by cutting into each team’s financial piece of the pie by adding an additional franchise through expansion.

As Dallas Mavericks owner Mark Cuban speculates, does Los Angeles need the NFL more than the NFL needs Los Angeles?

“The L.A. franchise is the world’s most valuable rainy day fund,” Cuban said via e-mail. “They don’t need the money. They don’t need another franchise. They don’t need it. And if they sell it, they just have to split all that money they are collecting one more time. So in reality unless there is some qualitative value to the league, expansion is really not all that valuable. Owners get a big check from the expansion fee, but they get less of the total pie forever more. Is it worth it?

“It’s all math. If a franchise fee is $2 billion, and you have to pay the new buyer 1/33rd of payouts, which is, and I’m guessing, $150 million per year, that’s a great deal for the new franchisee. So it’s probably not a good deal for the league.

“Since it’s not a good deal, they keep it in the rainy day fund. When they sense the league is declining, their rainy day, and a new team in L.A. adds enough value, they sell it then.”

In other words, what’s the urgency?

Jones insists the push and motivation is real. In fact, he recently said he expects evidence to emerge within a year indicating a team’s plan to move here.

“I think it’s imminent,” he proclaimed.

Jones maintains his optimism is well grounded, pointing out the multiple teams in need of new stadiums that are also free to leave their current markets within the next year.

“We’ve never, in any time we’ve talked about this, had the teams that, because of very individual situations with their current cities, had the ability to move to Los Angeles like they do now,” Jones said.

Which brings us to Davis and the Raiders.

And why their recent visit to their former training-camp base ‑ the Raiders called Oxnard home from 1985-95 ‑ may have been a poignant prelude to a more permanent stay.

Davis and the Raiders sit near the bottom of the NFL revenue rung, and as they glance up at the 30 or so teams above them, the $100 million disparity between the top and bottom becomes more daunting.

It’s essentially the difference between signing top free agents and not.

“We just have a hard time competing for players.” Davis said wistfully.

Meanwhile, their quest to replace outdated O.Co Coliseum with a more profitable venue in the Bay Area is no closer to completion today than it was 19 years ago.

The Raiders renewed their lease at O,Co for the upcoming season in the hope of finally working something out in Oakland.

But that clock ticks loudly and ominously.

“If that doesn’t happen, we’ll have to look at our options,” said Davis.

With Los Angeles sitting at the top of that list.

“I think we’d be well received if we ever came back,” Davis said. “Raider Nation is very strong in Southern California. I don’t think it would be difficult at all transitioning back.”

He insists his motivation is to find a home that enables the Raiders to financially compete for top free agents.

In his case, the sales of the Dodgers and Clippers are irrelevant.

“I’m different in that regard,” Davis said. “Franchise value means very little to me. I just want to get enough revenue that I can pay for players.”

Los Angeles can provide that stability to the Raiders.

But they aren’t alone in eyeing this market, as Jones alluded.

The longer the Rams ‑ who were ranked dead last in Forbes’ annual ranking of the NFL’s most valuable franchises ‑ go without a long-term resolution and the more land Kroenke buys in Los Angeles, the more speculation swirls the Rams are headed back to their former home.

Meanwhile in San Diego, the Chargers continue their longtime fight for a new stadium.

But with no viable plan on the horizon, they too are running out of options. They have a yearly out-clause in their lease with Qualcomm Stadium, giving them the option to flee to Los Angeles after next season.

That’s three teams currently in stadium fights that can move to Los Angeles at a moment’s notice.